Antoinette breaks her silence at last!

Does Antoinette Taus have not just one but two children by Dingdong Dantes?

Did they get secretly married?

Are they carrying on a long-distance romance (marriage?) now that Antoinette is happily settled in Los Angeles with her brother Tom and their father Tom (the Taus matriarch died of cancer last year)?

Even now that she is miles and miles away, Antoinette continues to be hounded by these and other questions especially after Dingdong recently admitted that he and Karylle (daughter of Zsa Zsa Padilla) are now going steady.

Why, has Dingdong had his "marriage" (take note, in quotation marks) to Antoinette "dissolved?"

Did he and Antoinette file for divorce?

What happened to their two "children?"

During my recent trip to L.A. (for the Herbie Fully Loaded press junket), I did an exclusive interview with Antoinette at the beautiful garden of the Westin Century Plaza Hotel & Spa in Century City. Antoinette answered all the questions above and several others besides, mincing no words and leaving no stone unturned.

Yes, she said, she knew that Dingdong and Karylle are now going steady. But no, she said Karylle didn’t "steal" Dingdong from her because she and Dingdong had broken up (last March) before Dingdong and Karylle began going steady.

Sorry but that’s all I can tell you about Antoinette at the moment lest I preempt the exclusive interview which will be aired this Saturday, June 18, on Showbiz Stripped (telecast on GMA after Idol Ko si Kap) and discussed extensively in Conversations with Ricky Lo on Sunday, June 19. It’s worth staying late up for, so please watch Showbiz Stripped.

Besides Antoinette, two other US-based Filipino celebrities are featured on Showbiz Stripped. One of them is Drama Actress Par Excellence Marlene Dauden who was here last May to bury her older brother Manolo who died of cancer. Marlene and husband Nonggoy Hernaez, with their two daughters and their grandchildren, have been living in San Francisco, California, for many years now. Marlene talks about her life as a private citizen in San Francisco where Pinoys still recognize her.

The other US-based celebrity is Anna Bayle, the chocolate-complexioned Miss Republic of the Philippines runner-up (to Suzanne Gonzalez, back in the mid-’70s) who made it as an international model. I interviewed Anna in New York which has been her home these past years. She is divorced from her New Zealander husband by whom she has a son. (Watch out, too, for an interesting Conversation with Anna in The STAR.)

Titled Mga Babae sa Crossing (ng Buhay), or something to that effect, the Showbiz Stripped June 18 episode also showcases such admirable "survivors" as Janice de Belen, her SIS co-host Carmina Villarroel and Jean Garcia (who recently ended her romance with Gardo Versoza).

These three women, all beautiful survivors of failed love affairs (and, in the case of Janice, a failed marriage... to John Estrada who now belongs to Vanessa del Bianco) candidly talk about how they struggled to regain their self-esteem and bravely "crossed" the decisive bridge to independence.

Okay, then. Let’s all stay awake Saturday night and watch how these six fabulous females are "stripped" with their consent.

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